NASCAR’s Next Gen vehicle has been an incredible success on track, with an unprecedented 17 different winners and numerous thrilling races over the 2022 season. While a great year was certainly hoped for, such an outcome was far from certain in mid-to-late 2021 as teams began testing their own cars.
As could be reasonably expected with the debut of a brand new car, issues began to appear that were not seen during NASCAR’s own prototype testing. This is the story of the race to fix some of the most concerning issues before the new car hit the track, with high hopes of delivering one of the best seasons in NASCAR’s recent memory.
Prototype 1
NASCAR’s on-track testing approach with the Next Gen car extended through much of the early part of 2021, beginning with a two-day test at Richmond in March. The new vehicle, dubbed Prototype 1 (P1), was the initial platform designed to evaluate all the new systems on the car. But, by the time of the test, most of P1 was already obsolete as the design was rapidly evolving, so it was decided to advance the design and build a new vehicle, Prototype 3 (P3), which skipped over an anticipated evolution of P1. This car was run initially at Texas in May and then for the remainder of the NASCAR testing schedule until team testing began.
Cut to September 2021, where eight teams participated in the inaugural organisation test of the Next Gen at Daytona. In the humid Florida heat, high cockpit temperatures were a universal complaint from the drivers. With its
